Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I sympathise with the Polish families but I also sympathise with the 84 families of murder victims last year. Some 84 people were murdered last year, which is a disgrace. This Government has been in office for ten years and all we hear from it are more announcements and public relations by its programme managers and officials.

When will the home protection Bill be introduced? I am glad the Minister is here because I want him to listen to me. There are people who went to bed this evening when it started to get dark and they will not get up until tomorrow morning when it is bright. They will pray through the night that they will not be attacked by some thug filled with drugs and drink. If the thug is caught, people will say the poor fellow was on drugs. The time has come for people in their homes to use whatever force is necessary. To hell with the do-gooders. If somebody comes into one's home, one should be able to use whatever force is necessary and not what the law states, that is, "reasonable force". If a thug comes into one's house at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., he is not coming in for tea. If one or any of one's family gets in his way, he will use whatever amount of violence he chooses. I want to see this Bill introduced in the House before the year is out so people who must protect themselves or their families will not find themselves in court where the free legal aid system will work against them because the State will pay for the criminal to bring them to court.

It is time we brought justice back to the people. If people need to protect their homes or families, the law should protect them and not always the criminal. If someone goes out tonight, kills somebody and appears before the court tomorrow morning, the judge will say he or she must be assessed. Who pays for that? He or she will then get the top lawyer in the country through the free legal aid system. Who pays for that? It pays to commit crime in this country. If people have to defend their homes, they will have to put their home, their family and everything they have ever worked for on the line to go to the court to fight their case. It is time the law was brought back to the people.

We all talk about anti-social behaviour. Last Monday someone came into my clinic who went to court and gave evidence in a case about anti-social behaviour. That anti-social behaviour is still going on because the local authority did not have the guts to deal with the problem. The local authority told the people living in the estate that if they came forward and if a prosecution was secured, it would deal with the problem. It did not do so and now 19 families in one housing estate have left because of one problem with anti-social behaviour which the State did not deal with it.

As is the case in England, it is time for people in this country to get life if they commit murder. If somebody is caught with drugs, he or she should get a mandatory sentence of ten years. If someone wants to dabble with drugs and destroy young people's lives, he or she must know he or she will spend ten years behind bars and not enter one door and exist through another.

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